now more than ever droid does. this morning my advice. extremism is not a winning strategy. are you listening gop? plus in florida, the souls are headed to the polls right now. and the other election on november 6 that could immediately change your life. but first, the one simple word that may determine the whole thi thing. good morning, i'm melissa harris perry. first thing this morning, want to give everyone an update on the latest on the path of hurricane sandy. the storm is expected to bring life threatening conditions to the east coast. high wind watches and warnings are in effect for portions of the mid-atlantic states as well as much of new england. the center of sandy will move

parallel to the southeast coast of the u.s. today and will approach land tomorrow night. both the romney and obama campaigns have canceled scheduled events already due to sandy. so if you're in an affected area, stay inside, stay off the roads and stay tuned into msnbc. all right. now, let's turn to the final countdown. i wanted to sing that but i don't have a very good singing voice. but we're in the final days and we can all agree that the way a political candidate runs a race is important, but how a candidate closes the deal is crucial. and with just one more week left until election day, this is when the candidates' closing strategies kick in. while we've harped on battleground states, a new analysis by the associated press shows in the case to 270, may come down to 106 counties. these are counties with names like hamilton county, ohio, loudoun county, virginia, and

hills bborough county, florida. they're the same ones that george w. bush won in 2004 and that then senator obama wan in 2008. these are the swing voters. and part of the candidates' closing strategy is to hit at as many of these areas as possible before election day. because the latest polls show that the race in battle ground states like ohio have president obama leading mitt romney by five points when counting both early voters and ohioans who will actually vote on election day. but the overall race is a dead heat among ohioans who are going to cast their ballot on november 6. so how does president obama or mitt romney break the stalemate among the voters? they can basically either woo the undecideds or fire up the base. for president obama, it has become increasingly clear that the strategy is about one word, early. >> we can vote early in

illinois, we can vote early in illinois. just like you can vote right now in florida. p just like you can vote early in colorado. just like you can vote early here in nevada. you can vote early. anybody who is here who has not yet voted, i want you to go vote. vote. vote. vote. vote. >> so did you get the message obama supporters some vote, vote, vote, early, early, early. it is a message directed specifically at the base. and to drive the point home about early voting, president obama went home to cast his vote this past thursday in chicago. this is the first time a sitting president has voted early. and the campaign also circulated a photo of first lady michelle obama showing off her prepared absentee ballot. now, they have it up on their website, too, in case you haven't had any campaign ads to remind you. i figured, hell, if they're voting early, i might as well

join the party. so i voted earlier this week. while that message may have been pretty clear, the obama campaign has had a few mixed messages. their daily e-mails have ranged from the race is close giving voters a sense that they might lose at any point to them having a bit of swagger. we got this. now, mitt romney on the other hand has chosen to go full tilt with his swagger. i can't even believe i just said romney and swagger in the same sentence. but here he is. >> i want you to know how optimistic i am. this is about to get real good. >> this is about to get real good. see, romney's closing strategy is to ride the alleged wave of mitt momentum, you know, appear leak a winner. or is it? >> by the way, there's early voting now. make sure that you get voted early. we want to get that done, bank all those vote. early voting has begun.

i need you to vote, get your neighbors to vote, find one person who voted for barack obama last time and get them to come out and vote for us this time. >> all right. so maybe mitt romney is also taking a two prong way, he's for early voting, too, or maybe he has a bit of romnesia about what his closing strategy is supposed to be. whatever the case, the two strategies that they've chosen tells us this. president obama has eight days to win this election. mitt romney has nine. because he's betting on a big turn out on election day. listen, romney may be on to something given that in 2008, there were states that then candidate obama lost on election day. but he carried them because of his campaigns early voting strategy. right now polls show that in key states like ohio, president obama leads mitt romney 2:1 or 60% to 30% with early voters. remains to be seen what strategy will seal the deal and who will

win this election. but come election day, it will be clear whether the right strategy was galvanize voters early, early, early, or just hope they show up on election day. let's go to our table of experts. we -- look, this is it. 2450es are the final days. this is serious politics. so what's happening here particularly among my strategists. is it about targeting 106 counties, is it about early, early, swing voters, what is the winning strategy? >> what's going on is we have a gruff's race for ohio going on and barack obama and mitt romney are the candidates. we're dead in in terms of focusing in on specific counties

because everyone's focused on ohio and i think to some degree candidates and people down at the county level in ohio may have better feel than some looking at polls and super pacs at the national level. >> we've been having a mike problem. but if you didn't hear out there, he's saying we have a governor's race in ohio and mitt romney and barack obama are the candidates. maybe your mike is working. >> you're right, early voting is key. and part of that strategy is focus on two groups. what i call soft supporters, those are folks who voted for president obama in 2008, they have not seen the progress that they would have hoped to have seen, but they still support him, but they're not necessarily going to be compelled to vote early. so to push those people to the poll. the second group is newly registered voters in those key

counties because they may be turned off on election day if the lines are too long, if they deal with some of the obstruction nico obstructionism that we can expect. >> as i was looking at those 106 counties, we think of them as like swing voters, but it's not really that. people have their minds made up. it's just which one of he is them that live in that county show up. is it about getting them to the polls some. >> i think so. and when we reference to these candidates, we're hearing pretty different arguments and that's because barack obama is deep into his closing argument of debates because of the electorate he's mobilizing and mitt romney is still trying to reach more persuadable voters. that's why it sounds so gi different. that's why the president said just this week you you didn't want these politicians most of whom getting male getting between you and your doctor.

and he made it a gender argument. his position is different than romney's. but i do think that it would be fair to say that three weeks ago barack obama was not talking all about choice and other base arguments. . so that's why again in ohio, you have mitt romney still trying to make a sale because he's trying to talk to people who might be up in the air. >> i was interested because i saw there's one little difference that happened with the obama campaign. their sign has been -- or slogan has been forward. but it's been forward with a period. and just this week, it turned into forward with an exclamation mark. and they're already deep in their closing argument, so now it's forward! >> david axelrod was asked about the period and he insisted that was exactly what the campaign wanted and now the week before we see exclamation point. there's something about the article about the 106 counties. the core assumption is that the

bases will turn out as roughly the same numbers in 2008. so i think that's part of the focus on ways voters, souls to the polls in the context of voter suppression, women in particular are the folks that ari said that the president is going after. so you have to have at least the same turnout among the bases as you it in 2008 to make hose counties important. >> so john, in these final moments to get the base there,t counties important. >> so john, in these final moments to get the base there, is it advertising, is it the actual campaign offices? i was reading a piece suggesting that the president has like 8,000 versus 3,000 on the romney side in terms of actual offices open. what what is the thing that moves people to show up? >> in terms of advertising, those missiles have been launched and what was ingoing t happen has been decided weeks ago. so i think both candidates are focused on, one, filling in weak areas. you see that with the new myth of the moderate mitt who is now

emerged and obama has released his plan and everything else is in terms of what they're saying on the stump, it's totally about base mobilization. >> i love myth of the moderate mitt. i love that. up next, we're going to actually take a look at early voting. we'll go live to florida and see what the lines look like there. [ male announcer ] when it comes to the financial obstacles military families face, we understand. at usaa, we know military life is different. we've been there. that's why every bit of financial advice we offer is geared specifically to current and former military members and their families. [ laughs ] dad! dad! [ applause ] ♪ [ male announcer ] life brings obstacles. usaa brings advice. call or visit us online. we're ready to help. this reduced sodium soup says it may help lower cholesterol,

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we've been talking about the strategy of early voting and who better to talk about that is craig melvin who is in the thick of it in gainesville, florida right by the early voting location. yesterday marked the first day of early voting in florida.

craig, what are you seeing down there? >> let me tell you, it was quite the scene. today we are in gainesville, florida. but yesterday we were hours south. we were down in miami, we were this broward county. we hit a couple of polling places there. and what we wanted to find out, first of all, is enthusiasm where it was four years ago. and turnout. is turnout higher than expected or less than what they were expecting. and what we found out yesterday, enthusiasm higher than what many have been reporting address turnout considerably higher than what folks were expecting. i want to give you some numbers here. yesterday in pembroke pines, this is where i was, you can see the lines wrapped around the building. some folks said they stood in line for two hours. first day '08, 12,000 early voters. first day in 2008, this is in miami-dade county. yesterday 22, 625 voters.

leon kelly hillsborough county, as well, we talked to folks saul of them saying that they saw higher numbers, higher early voter numbers than four years ago. >> i know we in the media have been critiqued in part for a narrative about lack of enthusiasm and suggesting that we don't have the same sense of like america history changing, momentum that the president had in 2008, but with numbers like that, at a minimum what you've got is message received from the obama campaign about showing up to vote early. >> and a number of folks i talked to called me on some of those characterizations and those narratives that we've all been talking about over the past few months. and i'll tell you one other thing that a number of folks said, one of the things that drove them to the polls early, a just just told me this, a lot of the talk about vote are restrictions, a lot of the talk about the voter i.d. stuff,

folks said they wanted to get out early to demonstrate to the media and to demonstrate to others that we are serious and that you are not going to restrict our vote. so it also doesn't hurt that here in florida, there hasn't been a cloud in the sky for two days and it's 75 degrees probably. >> i'm slightly jealous, but thank you so much for joining us from florida. craig will be anchoring more crunch live from florida from 3:00 to 5:00 p.m. eastern later today on msnbc. so if we have craig melvin down there and early voting in florida as one strategy, but both campaigns are trying to use a strategy that sounds like it's right out of the long running npr show car talk. take a look. >> i love cars. i must admit, i'm a car guy. >> romney is a car guy. >> i'm a son of detroit. i was born in detroit. my dad was head of a car company. i like american cars about and i would do nothing to hurt the u.s. auto industry.

>> if you say that you you love american cars during a debate, but you wrote an article entitled let detroit go bankrupt, you might have romnesia. >> mr. romney tries to have voters believe that he's a car guy, proud son of george romney, held of american motors. but there is that op-ed that will haunt him for the next nine days. and the title says it all. let detroit go bankrupt. romney might have been voicing his opposition to bailing out the auto companies and instead managed -- wanted to go with managed bankruptcy, but it translated if he want detroit to go away and die. and while the auto industry is making a slow and somewhat staggered comeback, it walk as fine line between bankruptcy and solvency. president obama's plan did not give up on the american car or american car manufacturing. and that may translate in the president's favor beyond

michigan into key battleground states like ohio where recent polls show him doing better among white male voters than in other parts of the country. so ari, to me this notion of romney trying to sell himself as an automat bot when he's clear deceptive, he can keep saying i love cars when we have that let detroit go bankrupt headline. >> this goes to the entire mindset of their world views. mitt romney is a private equity guy. so when he sees an investment that he doesn't think is basically creating the returns in the short run that it should, he does what private quitity guys do which is let's get out of it. that is a good business model. you can make money doing that p. fine. you can't run a country like that. because as the new yorkers said in their endorsement of barack obama, unlike a company, a country can't layoff its least productive citizens. it can't give up on them because

we are in this together. and barack obama at bottom is a public infrastructure guy. not rust because he runs the federal government in his current job. but because he's had a philosophy for a long time for organizing to his work in the academy and that's what this is about. he got in there, he spent money, he renewed those businesses. and what you have on the ground in ohio right now is mitt romney running adds that the obama campaign was rebutting about pushing the lie and distracting people from the record. >> romney's narrative is i'm a good business guy so put me in charge of government. yeah, feel free to go run a business somewhere, but that is not the same thing as being good at running government. what i find interesting is what that means in terms of how the president is doing better in ohio among white voters. so we have in ohio obama doing 7 to 11 points better among white voters and white men specifically than he does nationally in part because of

this. >> so 850,000 jobs related to the auto industry in the state of ohio. one in eight jobs in ohio is an auto related job. that's huge. and when you add to that the mobilization against sb 5, the anti-collective bargaining bill that did pass the legislature but then the ballot initiative reversed that, that brought together a coalition of white union members with african-americans and latinos that did not go home after that ballot initiative. they are still mobilized and organized. so those two things, the fact that it's an auto state and the attack owe 9 labor movement last year is working to the president's favor right now. and the other thing is michigan is not even in play. this is the son of the governor of michigan is not in play. >> massachusetts is not in play either. and he was in fact the governor of massachusetts. we're running long here, but i just want to ask you specifically about this question

of cars because we're talking about the importance of it in the issue of ohio, but american cars are a symbolic issue. isn't this play beyond ohio? >> it plays everywhere, but it's part of the slight economic comeback that's happening in ohio. that's why the president is doing so well. and i think mitt romney is going to get so desperate in ohio, i think he'll put on an ohio state jersey. it's just a matter of time. i can see him ripping up a wolverine jersey and putting on osu. >> we'll stay on this topic because when we come back, there is more to this mitt romney autobot story because he made millions from the auto industry bailout and that makes it ugly. copd makes it hard to breathe,

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it's entirely another thing when you profit from the very bailout that you opposed. so says a recent cover story, mitt romney's bailout bonanza and how he made millions from the rescue of detroit. the piece shows the ties between their blind trust and the hedge if you said which tooked over delphi automotive, a move which the piece charges made the romneys at least $15.3 million on the very bailout that he did not support. still with me is tara and joining her is greg palace who wrote that piece, author of billionaires and ballot bandits. i love this story, but i'm a little shocked i suppose that it's not front page news on every major national magazine. >> well, two questions. how did i get it, number one, it's not a blind trust that ann romney has.

i call it a blond trust. i'm a financial investigator. it was easy to see right through it and you'll tell me the ceo of bain capital didn't know what was in his own trust? it was mainly invested with a guy known as the vulture who happens to be mitt romney's number one key donor. so romney didn't know his blind trust happened one in a million to be invested with his key donor and the he didn't know the number one investment of the vulture was the that division of gm? and by the way the romney campaign has confirmed that he made the money and it looks like it may be at the top of the range $115 million. >> so let me ask you this. if he'd released his tax returns, would we have needed investigative reporting? >> yeah, you would. because he's hiding it very well. he's taken the money, he earned the 15 to $115 million and moved

it, the in-koorcorporation of d moved it from troy, michigan to the isle of jersey. a notorious tax haven. >> the isle of jersey is not new jersey. >> leave the boss out of it. exactly. so yeah, they moved all the jobs. and this is the other side of the story which people have not noticed. the vulture and his silent partner, romney, took over the auto parts division of general motors. they moved the 25 plants that they had control of, they moved 24 of those plants to china and asia. every plant. they didn't save those plants. it wasn't like this was gm. he actually got rid of the employees, moved the jobs to china and moved his money to iraq off the coaa rock off the coast of france. >> if i'm reading the nation cover story or i managed to pick

up greg's book,a rock off the ct of france. >> if i'm reading the nation cover story or i managed to pick up greg's book,a rock off the cf france. >> if i'm reading the nation cover story or i managed to pick up greg's book,a rock off the c france. >> if i'm reading the nation cover story or i managed to pick up greg's book,rock off the coa. >> if i'm reading the nation cover story or i managed to pick up greg's book, how do you turn this, which clearly seems to suggest a deception that should make us nervous as americans, how do you turn it into political strategy without whining that this guy made millions? >> i think one guy that the campaign is doing is making sure that the groups that support the president are getting this information out to their members, through their networks, that the unions are letting this information to be known to make sure people stay enthusiastic and understand what's at stake here. this is yet another example of mitt romney's hypocrisy. and if you are someone who were on the cusp of losing their job, on the cusp of losing everything and you have worked for and now you have that back, you need to be reminded that that was the president that stood with you. mitt romney didn't say let wall street go bankrupt. he let detroit go bankrupt. >> and let me ask you, talk to

me about the actual -- so what mitt romney has attempted to do is say it really was my idea, the very thing the president did was the very thing i was saying she do. how is it different? >> one, the president wanted to loan money to the auto industry, to delphi, to general motor, to buy back its parts division. but romney's group saidly said we own it. if you don't give us what we want, which is $12.9 billion, we will cut off your parts literally they were going to withhold the steering column and that's how they got it. because the vulture and romney were not supposed to own delphi, it was supposed to go to the owner of the detroit pistons and gm. they snatched it away and moved all the jobs to the country. and when you talk about the unions, this week the uaw is filing a formal ethics complaint

with the u.s. government office of ethics in government saying that romney cannot legally hide this. you can makes a much money as you want, right? but you can't hide it. and that will be coming out this week. >> i love that, do what you want, but do it in the light of day. thank you. i appreciate both the reporting as well as you coming and spending time with us here to talk about it. up next, are a few extremists going to take down the whole gop or has the whole gop become extreme? [ male announcer ] this is sheldon, whose long dy setting up the news starts with arthritis pain and a choice. take tylenol or take aleve, the #1 recommended pain reliever by orthopedic doctors. just two aleve can keep pain away all day. back to the news. at legalzoom, we've created a better place to turn for your legal matters. maybe you want to incorporate a business you'd like to start. or protect your family with a will or living trust. legalzoom makes it easy with step-by-step help when completing your personalized document --

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an essay out this week in the new yorker magazine nicely sums up the problem facing the republican party right now. the headline reads gop split over whether to emphasize miss only any or racism. the piece is written by a humorist and of course he's not being completely literal.the pi humorist and of course he's not being completely literal.

but that doesn't mean there's not a shade of truth to it. because to hear them speak lately, one has to wonder, are republicans choose to go isolate themselves further from women or from people of color? let's start with misogny. and just in the last ten days, there was joe walsh of illinois who after a debate with his democratic opponent had this to say. "the modern technology and science, you can't find one instance, there is no such exception as life of the mother and as far as health of the mother, the same thing. congratulations, ladies. thanks to modern technology and science, we are immortal. oh, and of course we can't forget richard candidate who said this. >> i believe life begins at exception. the only exception an abortion is in that case of the life of the mother.

i just struggled with it myself for a long time, you but life is that gift from god and even when life begins in that horrible situation of rape, that it is something that god intended to happen. >> we're all impressed with his struggle with that for a long time and i've already said what i've had to say with mr. mourdock. but this week, todd akin became a cautionary tale nuking his campaign by uttering the words legitimate rape, but let's and he not make it sound like these guys are the fringe of the republican party, but just less articulate. vice presidential nominee paul ryan once voted to redefine rape for the purposes of restricting an bourpgs rights and he also co-sponsored a federal person hood bill that would have given a fetus legal rights. that's the same kind of of might be that mitt romney told mike huckabee last year that he would support. >> would you have supported the constitutional amendment that would have established the

definition of life at conception? >> absolutely. >> so it's important to understand that the members of the gop making headlines with their outrageous statements are not outliers disconnected from party leadership. mitt romney and paul ryan may say it a little differently, but these guys are all in the same boat rowing in the same direction and quite frankly i think it's a little terrifying. back with me, tara and ari, john and joining us is a feminist activist shelby knox. so do the republicans hate women despite the i love women proclamation from the republican party? >> i don't know if they hate, but they he certainly don't understand how their bodies work which is interesting considering this comes from the party of people who have said abstinence only until marriage. >> can which we know fails. >> over and over again, but obviously they took it and failed. but i think that what's important to know here is that

republicans see reproduction as if they can control that, then they can control all of those other forms of oppression that you were talking about. you can forward home know phobia through controlling reproduction and it's terrifying that these men running for elected office are saying we want to play god, we want to tell you what we're going to do with your bodies. and in fact they're invoking god. they say we know what god wants. and as a religious woman, i want to go how are you having these special relationships with god that women can't have? >> this is not a small point. i don't want viewers to miss this. the control of reproduction is not just about reproduction. it's about the economy, that it's about race. when we think about jim crow laws, it was all about not allowing people of two different races to reproduce. i hadn't quite put it all together until i heard you say that, so i don't want other folks to misses that. and yet surprisingly the gender gap is less extreme than i might

think it would be given these circumstances. is it -- when i look at the numbers, it says to me, yes, there's a gender gap, but it's still being driven primarily by women of color and by young women. so what's going on not just with the extremes of the republican party, but with women who hear this and i'm like, yeah, i'm town with them. what is that some. >> the conventional wisdom is when the republicans say these extreme things, those women will be turned off and vote if democrats. i don't think that's necessarily the case. it's not that they don't reject what is being said, because they do. but at the same time sometimes if you're independent and you are dead on the in middle, it's because you're turned off by booth pa both party. so democrats have to remember to make the case that this is the par

part yy you should come to. >> here's the truth, they made it very, very clear, made it very clear that they do not believe a woman has a right to control her own body. they can't even get up the gumption to condemn the statements made by two of their ka candidates for united states senate. 2 have the moral courage to stand up and say what they said was wrong. simply wrong. >> is that the strategy, ari, you link the top to the exextremes and then it's done? >> exactly. and that goes to what you're saying. there's an emiss tomorrow ol gi of how we know what we know about these different parties and people. and i don't think the press and for many years the democratic party did a very good job, you know. you've got a party here that won't talk about sex in school as you were saying but will talk all about rape and redefining

rape which the president was speaking out on. you have a party that doesn't want to pay for your health care, but they to want for come into your doctor's office and take certain procedures off the table. so you've got incredible hypocrisy and in-s vase sif and sexist attitudes, but i don't think they're always exposed p. there is a saying in hip hop, act like you know. act like you know. we know what's going on here. and the problem i have is when i watched certain shows and certain television and even newspapers that cover this, it's like this is news, this a a big deal. like i didn't know that most republican members of congress hold these views and want to restrict abortion. i think to some degree it's so hard for the president to tell this story in a way that matches their notion of balance. because when you're opposing half the population, you can't sound balanced. >> right.

there is no balance on this. we'll stay on this. because up next, there is a survey that says there's been an increase in racial prejudice. i wonder why. act like you know. with the spark cash card from capital one, sven's home security gets the most rewards of any small business credit card! how does this thing work? oh, i like it! [ garth ] sven's small business earns 2% cash back on every purchase, every day! woo-hoo!!! so that's ten security gators, right? put them on my spark card! why settle for less? testing hot tar... great businesses deserve the most rewards! [ male announcer ] the spark business card from capital one. choose unlimited rewards with 2% cash back or double miles on every purchase, every day! what's in your wallet? here's your invoice.

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you might have a treatable condition called low testosterone or low t. millions of men, forty-five or older, may have low t. so talk to your doctor about low t. hey, michael! [ male announcer ] and step out of the shadows. hi! how are you? [ male announcer ] learn more at isitlowt.com. [ laughs ] hey! when you take a look at colin powell, you have to wonder if that's an endorsement based on issues or whether he has a slightly different reason for preferring president obama. >> what reason would that be? >> well, i think when you have somebody of your own race that you're proud of being president of the united states, i applaud collin for standing with him. >> so the other piece is moving from dog whistle racial angst to straight up sununu racial angst.

>> the republican party will have to deal with long term if you win with the tea party, you'll lose with the tea party. whether we have huge short term gains because of some of these appeals that are being made and some of these appealses that frankly are more out of the '50s or '60s,ic over ten years the republican party is in big trouble. the demographics in terms of attitude, in terms of age, in terms of views on race and orientation have moved past them. so i think that's a big problem. whether there are short term gains with women, which i think there still will be, but frankly, probably the worst thing that could happen to the republican party is if mitt romney wins because then there will nobody reevaluation of the tea party's role of the republican party. >> if he loses, in 2016 they have a field of potential candidates that includes women and people of color and, yes, still republican and

conservative, but this particular version of republicanism, if it could die in 2012, might allow them more breathing room long term. but when i saw the new ap research suggesting that racial animus has grown, racism is endogenous. it's not just a thing. the numbers of americans with anti-black sentiment has jumped to 56% from 49%. i think that is the fault of racists, ray allized discourse in the public spirit. it doesn't just happen. it happens because we actively attack this president in ways that have more than racial overtones. that feels to me like one ought to be held accountable for that. >> what the republicans did, and this was brilliant strategy, shameful but brilliant rkt they saw that president obama's greatest strength, what drew people on him, was when he said

we're not a red america, we're not a blue america, we're united states of america. he talked about bringing people together. so they went at that strength. and so they said people are expecting when he becomes president for things to get better racially. which he's not a emergencyic president. >> you know about the magic. >> you said it, i didn't say it. >> so they went after that. they said if we can create a situation where we create all this division and then say he's p president, why is there all this division, and that strategy is working and we need to push back. >> i absolutely break that if the sense of racial harmony is his strength and you try to create racial division and say he didn't create racial harmony, coming up, we'll talk more about the extremism in the party by going to minnesota to talk to the man who could defeat michele bachmann. buying this juicer online was unbelievable.

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the day. but in that spirit, i want to talk to someone running against those extremes in this election. let's go to minneapolis to speak with jim graves, a democrat running for congress in minute men's sixth district against congresswoman michele bachmann. nice to see you, jim. >> good to be with you. >> let me ask you this question. we're trying to figure out if the extremes that are often represented by the woman that you are running against, whether or not that is ultimately going to bring down the republican party in the short term or if not in the short term, -- >> no question about it. michele bachmann epitomizes everything that's wrong on the women's issues. she has engaged in a war on women. she would like to take women back 50 years, go back to the mail dominant society, control women's reproductive rights, control everything about women. definitely it's a war on women and it will definitely be a very important issue in this

election. >> it's interesting to hear you say that because clearly michele bachmann issers a woman. so you have sort of a complicated thing going on here where you're saying she herself is a woman and mother and yet her positions are positions that don't lead to sort of greater equality, fairness for women in general who would be your constituents if you won. >> you look at the her voting record, she votes against reproductive rights, she votes against even women to have access to birth control. this is a woman that would like to take that entire half of our society back 50 years and go back to a male dominant society. this is really why i came out of my comfort zone. i'm a strong believer in freedom and equality and for everybody. and when you see -- she's endorsed akin. she is on the wrong side of this issue right across the board. no question about about ththat. >> as you talk with potential constituents, are folks saying

what we really want is a conversation about economics or what sort of things are people saying about sort of the bachmann extremism? >> people are worried about jobs, about making their house payments, about getting their kids off to school. they're worried about access to health care. these are the core issues that people want. they don't want these fringe issues, somebody attacking women's rights. they want to talk about getting people back to work and they want equal pay for equal work for women. women are a very important part of our society and they want to have equal opportunities. and michele bachmann isn't there for them. and that's why i've come out of my comfort zone. i'm a business guy. created jobs. i know what it takes to get people back to work. i have a lot of wonderful women in management positions and i hate seeing what's going on and that's why i'm running against michele bachmann because i hate to see this country going backwards. >> i want to back up and ask you, john, i know you to a ton of strategizing for local

campaigns. do you take -- did you link a candidate like michele bachmann to a national set of issues or do you stay just on the local? >> one thing you have on do when dealing with an extremist, and history goes back to when david duke ran for governor of louisiana years ago, it can't just be about extremism. we have to connect it back to the most meaningful issues of how it impacts your schools and the economy. you have to make it broader than just this person is too extreme. and you have to make a case that they're wildly out of touch. we talked about hypocrisy earlier and one race i'm involved in, there's a blow life, pro family tea party congressman in tennessee, and he's the one who is pro-life with his wife, but pro-choice with his mistress. and this sort of hypocrisy where he was recorded in a conversation trying to talk a mistress into getting an abortion. so you see the same thing with michele bachmann. the hypocrisy and the disconnect

between where the electorate is on important issues and this extreme partisan view that she promotes in washington. >> jim, you were talking about coming out of your comfort zone. if you were to win this and end up in a divided house of representatives, how do you imagine managing that given there would be extremists that you would have to work with. >> >> my whole life has been bringing people telling. in business you never ask your banker are you a republican or democrat or centrist. you have a business plan. you have an objective and you go forth. and you get that accomplished. and that's what it is. what the people of america and my district want are real solutions to the real problems. they don't want the sound bites and phoniness going around. they want real solutions to the real problems. and that's what i bring to the table. i live in the real world. i'm not a politician he trying to spin something. i'm there to do the work of the people, to serve the people and then when i get done, i'll go back to what i used to do, which is be a business guy.

>> thank you to jim graves in minnesota who i think potentially brought in the next part of our hip hop discourse by being real. i love it. >> thank you, made wlis a. and also thank you two. we're back for who are. and coming up, the matsmasses a this mobilizing. victory edition is next. rns? join the counter revolution and switch to olay pro-x to see results in 28 days. anti-aging results so you look up to 12 years younger. reduce the look of pores and fight red acne for clearer skin get cleansing results as effective as a $200 system no matter what your skincare issues you'll see results in 28 days guaranteed join the counter revolution with potent, professional, pro-x.

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that's a good deal! [ man ] wow! it is so good! [ male announcer ] our new maine stays! 15 entrees under $15, seafood, chicken and more! oo! the tilapia with roasted vegetables! i'm actually looking at the wood grilled chicken with portobello wine sauce. you so fascinated by the prices, you keep rambling on! i know! -that pork chop was great! -no more fast food friday's! so we gotta go! we're going to go to red lobster. yep. [ male announcer ] try our 15 under $15 menu and sea food differently! in a moment we'll get to our latest report on voter suppression, but first an update on hurricane sandy. 3200 flights have already been canceled due to sandy. and here in new york, governor cuomo has directed the mta to shut down all rail and bus services city wide by 7:00. landfall is expected in new jersey tomorrow nightpacted are

mid-atlantic states and new england. if you live in those region, please be careful, stay off the roads and double check that you have batteries and water at home. now let's turn back to the election. because with just a little more than a week left until election day, we still have a little fodder for our new and old and all together most important this week in voter suppression. there are still 13 states where laws restricting voting will be in effect on november 6. there are still lingering accusations and investigations of fraud coming from both parties. that's the bad news. but the deal is there's also good news and it's really, really good news. voting rights advocates have already won many of the legal battles over voter suppression and are organizing to defend

democracy on election day. the great news is the actual evidence that democracy seems to be prevailing. why? because people are voting. more than 12 million people have already taken advantage of early voting and cast their ballots. our own joy reed managing editor, msnbc contributor and guest on a canceled flight out of new york talked to some early voters on friday when she does travel to the battle ground state of ohio. she first sat down with state senator tee knnina turner to ta about the state suppression efforts. >> what is the issue that you're most passionate about? >> in the state of ohio in particular, we corrected the wrongs of 2004 opening up 35 days of early voting. what's wrong with that? why is it that the only type of voting that they're attacking here in ohio is the early in person vote? you know why?

because they know it disproportionately african-americans utilize that. what about working class people who have to have multiple modes of transportation to even get to the vote. the more they see press the vote in that way, it hurts not just african-americans and hispanic people a, it hurts working class people. this is 2012. we should find other opportunities for people to vote p. >> i think you have folks that are tdecisive. some don't want to go to the poll location on election day because they're afraid of long lines and some trust a ballot box more than a mailbox. >> why did you decide to come out early? >> because i save gas. >> i decided to get it done early instead of standing in long lines. it's also important to vote and

get out here and at least get your voices heard. >> our ancestors may have come here by different means, but we're all in the same boat now and this is about everybody having the opportunity to live their measure of the american dream and part of that is their right to vote. we should open it up for people, not make it harder for them. >> and back from ohio where more than a million people have already voted early is joy reed. so what did you -- i love that you were there. you were on on the ground, you were supposed to be in florida this morning, but sandy that been messing things up. that looks like a lot of enthusiasm, a lot of folks showing up to vote early. >> and there were a lot of people that were a lot younger than i i expected at the polls. a lot of parents bringing their young first time voter children there. and the people that we talked to were surprisingly not worried so much about voter suppression, they were very motivated. i didn't see the enthusiasm gap. what i saw were people who were very motivated to vote and a lot

of them had actually voted on election day. a lot of people we talked to said in '08, i it on election day, it was historic. but this year i'm anticipating that the lines will be longer. like people actually perceived themselves that there is going to be more enthusiasm, so they wanted to get it out of the way and then you had a lot of other people saying i want to make sure my guy gets in. so i want to get out there and do it now. i don't even want to wait. or they would say because of my work life, this is more convenience. so a lot of -- and the woman that you saw in the package, separate vice or of elections says she actually expects more early voting this cycle than in '08. p. >> i hadn't thought of the point that the historic nature was about being there on election day, but this time you're putting this work and just trying to make it all happen. so talk to me, though, because the issue still is really at the margins, right? and so these voter suppressive efforts tonigdon't need to keep everybody from the polls, just 1,000 here, 1,000 there.

the first lady was talking about a handful here or there. how do we figure out whether or not the right message is it's still scary, get out there and make it happen, or, okay, actually it's looking like it's go >> it's interesting because we also spoke with a local elected official in the fifth ward in ohio which is a very low income area where there are a lot of former felons. it turns out that a lot of the billboards that said voter suppression was a felony, they were right there in the heart of a district where everyone pretty much that lives in the cleveland area understands there are a lot of people there who have issues with former arrests. so they felt like that message was directed right at those people to say, hey, you, person with a felony in your background, this message is be afraid to go vote because might get arrested. they went and proceed sack acti clear channel and said this is wrong, and clear channel ultimately with drew all the

negative messages and now it says voting is a right, into the crime. so that's the message that the democrats are trying to project. but i also saw both the obama campaign but also local democrats, what they're trying to tell people is this is historic in a sense that your right to vote was won if the in the '60s. the message these guys are sending is it's not necessarily about barack obama, it's about you, about the fact that people fought and died about this right for you and that you need to get out there and have is afl rights movement. >> so if this is happening in ohio, so florida is -- obviously florida, florida florida. we were all up late that night. is it going to come down to florida and are these efforts to get people out early where in florida it's baby suppressed, will that make the difference? >> it's interesting because we've already had one pollster call florida for mitt romney. the obama campaign is by no means conceding florida. they have a huge operation there

that really is a turnkey that like ohio never really went away. so the florida organization just turned back on and they're really pushing early vote. one of the things that you're seeing in florida that's different in '08, in 2008 and before, republicans tend to do really well in absentee ballot. democrats do really well in in-person early vote. this year testimonies are pushing hard for absentee and they've closed the gap in absentee ballot requests with republicans to less than 12 percent which actually sounds bhad, but it's actually really good compared to where they were before. it's at about 6% or 7% they're down. >> so there's still a gap, but not the size -- >> not the gap in the '08. and you're seeing a surge in early vote. it's like that all over the state. churches are looking at the fact that the legislature in 2010 cut the early vote period from 14 days to 9. but what they did is they cut out what would have been the souls to the polls sunday which

would have been november 4th. so typically there were two sundays of early vote and churches would do some things on the first sunday, but they would make the big push on that final sunday. that is now gone and very much by design. they've said we'll double down. we'll tell churches saturday and sunday. so they're saying churches mobilize and make lemonade out of lemons. >> i love the operation. so can we somehow get nina turner declared like emperor of something in she is extraordinary. her voice on this issue of voter suppression has been so clear over the course of this election. >> i'm thinking czar of voter mobilization. but, no, i watched her do some voter mobilization at a church.

she plaquely preaches when it comes to voting and she delivers a message that really is straight out of that civil rights movemenera. she was talking about that no tired message. we can stand in those lines. you give us one day, we'll at that time one day. you give us voter i.d., we'll get an i.d. and i think that message is important. >> thank you to joy reid. and up next, i'll bring my panel back in on this issue of voter suppression and the backlash against it. could it turn out that the republicans have been their own great undoing. er ] take dayquil... [ ding! ] ...and spend time on the slopes. take alka-seltzer plus cold & cough... [ buzz! ] ...and spend time on the chair. for non-drowsy 6-symptom cold & flu relief. take dayquil. use nyquil... [ ding! ] ...and get longer nighttime cough relief. use alka-seltzer plus night cold & flu... [ coughs ] [ buzz! ] [ screams ] ...and you could find yourself...

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before he break we talked to joy reid about florida voters.

i want to bring my panel back in now. tara, ari, john and drian. dorian. all right. i typically hate the argument that suppression is good because it causes some kind of socialist movement. and yet what destroy was suggesting there is that this voter suppression efforts may have done more to mobilize people more than obama 2012 did. >> the challenge with election reform, campaign finance reform, is you usually need a big scandal and controversy to bring change. and even after the 2000 election, we didn't see a lot of reform and change. so hopefully we'll get some of the change on the front end, but then focus on the back he said because over the next few years,

we'll have money mobilized to beat back some of the voter i.d. laws and other things. otherwise these legislatures controlled by republicans will continue to do these things. i'm reminded of the old j pchlpn quote. there are two reasons a man does things. the reason he says and then the real reason he does things. >> there are members of congress trying to promote it, but i think we have to disaggregate what congress does in sponsor state legislatures and how people react on the ground and grass roots. what i heard about joy reid reporting to you from her time on the ground is the message here which i think is inspire to go a lot of people is last time they tried to stop him and he won. this time they're trying to stop all of us. doesn't matter really what we look like. a although a lot of this is based on stopping people who support obama including based on

race, but guess what, like all voter suppression, it's bad for address so we can all get together on that. >> and this point that it's bad for democracy, as much as i love the ways that we've had to focus on, all right, this is bad particularly for people of color and spanish speaking people, but this is fundamentally bad for who we are as a country. so here are my three things i wish would happen right after the election that we would make voting mandatory, that we would al abolish the electoral college and end anything other than same day registration. because then everybody's in the system at this point. >> i think voter suppression efforts have lit a fire under people and organizations. community organizations in ohio, minnesota, arizona, all mobilized to an extent they never have before. but you're right, after election day, we have to take up the big question, we have 50 different voting rules and regulations,

right? so why not standardize it so that everybody has the same -- knows the same procedures for voting. constitutional amendment, mandatory voting, a holiday, something, that equalizes the voting rules across the 50 states. i've heard reverend jesse jackson says 50 separate and unequal. your right doesn't rest nationally, it rests state by state. the one thing that that made me nervous in part about the voter suppression efforts getting these challenges and winning them none the less in court, i am sick at night thinking about voting rights act ending up in front of this supreme court. is there any possibility that a reelected president obama or that a democratic majority in the house or in the senate would take up these kind of larger issues right away in 2013? >> well, i think it depends. i think we a lot of shenanigans like we did see in 2000, then

that does energize and mobilize because really the push has to come from the people. if the people push and say this needs to change, that's when you see real change. given the state of economy, the fact that things are still not where we want them to be, realle see greater emphasis on that with some of the economic issues that are really waiting for whoever is elected right after november 6. but i do think that we have to be very careful democrats because it's not just about the voter suppression laws. i worked in florida in 2000. i workeded in pinellas county. and we won that county. but we saw security checkpoints being set up, people waiting on line and they had gotten on line before the polling places closed, they were told they could not vote. and i've giving and you few examples. we don't have all day.

so we have to be careful because feeling that things have been reso solved because of challenges in court, but there will be on the ground a in an begans that will take place. >> and this goes back to early vote. because if you're stopped on election day and you get intimidated or shut down, game over. when you have the early vote, not only does it let a wider array of people participate including people with odd work schedules or have a hard work time on just tuesday, but it also gives you a chance for more recourse because you have time on the front end. and so what the republicans tried to do in ohio this year is shut down the weekend voting, the weekend right before the election day. and when they lost that and a federal judge told them you can't do it, they took it all the way to the supreme court where they have friends to your point. on the supreme court, although it wasn't a final ruling and we won't get too deep in it, what they basically said unanimously was we're not going to stop the federal judge who stopped you. in other words, voting continues. so what i do think is this vours

of course they won't do with anything remedying racial barriers. so if it has anything to do with disparity and race in it, i wouldn't want to appeal it up to the supreme court. 31% of people voted early last cycle. it will be higher cycle than we've been discussing all day. i think this court may be better than people expect. >> interesting that that actually -- you talked me down from my total angst about the supreme court. >> it's what i do. >> so the great thing about twitter is you can see in real time what people say. so judith brown's advancement project informed me that we have 13,000 different voting jurisdictions. not just 50 states. it's 13,000 jurisdictions. so 13,000 different ways to vote. and i think we need to do what the right did after 2008.

they had a plan around all these voting suppression laws. and they implemented them especially after the 2010 midterms. what is -- for progressives, what's the plan to take up this issue that's not sexy for four years in between elections and then all of a sudden the month or two life the election we get all energized about it? what ate plan over the next four years, eight years to make voting a constitutional right? >> and nothing that judith brown is on that -- the fact is there are group, folks like the brennan center and like the advancement project. but i do think it still requires our elected officials despite the fact that they have the economy to deal with and immigration and health care and all that, i do think it ultimately will require at the federal level some support in saying this is important because in the end, you can't make -- you can't get to solutions about these problems unless you have the right to have your voice heard. up next with election day, although it's in the really just a day anymore, a week from tuesday, i want to ask why do we even vote on tuesdays? that's next.

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. an increasingly archaic american tradition, voting on the tuesday after the first month in november. if you live in one of those states, you're still voting like a devoutly religious buggy driving farmer fro 1845. and that was the year congress decided to pick a single day for all americans to vote based on what was most convenient for what was then our largely agrarian society. times have changed a lot.

my next guest says it's long past time that we change the way that we vote, too. joining me from burbank, california is a board member of why tuesday.org and host at huff post live. hi, jacob, how are you? >> good morning. thanks for having me. >> so talk to me, why tuesday? >> oh, man. so the short answer is absolutely no good reason whatsoever. and a little bit longer answer is because of like you said, the law set in 1845 meant to make voting convenient for people that travel by horse and buggy. and today i don't think many your viewers travel by horse and buggy today. >> i think typically we always think of however we vote, we think of it as natural or true with a capital t rather than the result of kind of political wrangli

wrangling. tell me a little bit about the story of how we get to tuesday as a voting day. >> literally it was the most convenient day for largely agrarian society. wednesday was market day. sunday you couldn't travel for religious observance, it took a day to get there, a day back, so tuesday was the most convenient day. today census data almost every single time indicates because of the inconvenience of voting, tuesday, is the number one reason people don't vote. you showed the graphic of those 15 states where people only can vote on tuesday in this country, tuesday voting is the big elephant in the room because in those 15 states, 65.5 million eligible voters live. and if you're a single mother or single father or two or three jobs like so many or long hours as a student? school, you only have tuesday to get to the polls. so ari, i love you, when you he wrote an op-ed about how

election day may be over, but for those people, that's the only option. >> it was a great piece. you can respond to the love. >> i love you, man. i love youf u rkove you. >> a lot of love going on here. and ari, your point in that piece was extraordinarily important that actually on tuesday, it may be much less important because it could be that mitt romney could win tuesday and lose the election. >> right. jacob is right. i wrote a reuters piece talking about how in many places early voting has completely changed election day. he's right in speaking to the reform agenda which is there is all these other places and it goes back to what dorian was saying. i went to law school. this is a national election. we should have uniform equal protection, national access and it should be greater than election day. >> so it seems that there a sports analogy here. in the ncaa, you play one game and if you win, then you go on

and if you lose -- but this is like the playoffs. you have to keep seeing over a course of several days who ultimately can get and sustain the greatest amount of support. let me ask you this, though. what happens in terms of public support for moving to early voting? when we look at all the states that now have level of early voting, what was the strategy that it took to get that and can the virginias and new yorks and other states manage to move towards that? >> yeah, i think an average state they're moving towards early voting. i'll vote early here in california. but what happens if you vote too early. if you voted if murder mourdock and you wanted to change your vote. so you have to be careful with early voting.you wanted to chan. so you have to be careful with early voting.wanted to change y. so you have to be careful with early voting. what we advocate is moving election day to the weekend saturday and sunday so that you

have a full weekend to vote before the week starts and you can do it that way on on a federal level. >> i love it. vote early, but not too early. you have to vote just right. thank you, jacob. appreciate you for joining us from burbank. up next from legalizing recreational al use of marijuana to implementing liabilities on sewer systems, those are just two of the ballot initiatives voters will decide on across the country on election day. or days or week or election month. do you even know what's on your local ballot? that's next. [ female announcer ] looking for the right fit? [ grunting ] [ female announcer ] no worries! with aussie's simple, new hair solutions... [ whip cracking ] [ female announcer ] ...you're sure to find the perfect one for you. [ grunts ] [ female announcer ] add some roo to your do! [ male announcer ] it's time for medicare open enrollment.

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the house, then the schoolboard and it down to your dog catcher, after you do that, you might get to the bottom of the ticket and simply may not know which way to go on all the ballot initiatives. on november 6, voters will also be deciding the outcome of 176 ballot measures across 38 states. in california alone, voters will be asked to make a call on 11 different plop positions. now, the measures range from a proposed ban on paycheck contributions to unions for political purposes to ending the death penalty in the state to a modification of california's three strikes law. and as they say, all politics are local, ballot initiatives if approved become law. in theory, voting on these measures is an exercise in direct democracy, but in practice, it is usually just an exercise because these initiatives are very high impact, but they're also very low information. and even the most savvy of voters can be misinformed or d underinformed about all the up and town votes on the ballot.

back to the panel. this is what happened to me. i voted early.down votes on the. back to the panel. this is what happened to me. i voted early. there were two balance loot initiatives that i was like, oh, man, i didn't know they were here. is this good, is this direct democracy, is this just how we should be governing, or is this in fact deeply problematic? >> if that happens to you, ph.d., then imagine, right, j most voters are confused. direct democracy came about during the progressive era to take on the interests of the first gilded age. so it was a democratizing effort. today it is use the by the 1% primarily to push their issues that they can't get won in the legislature. so in california, if you look at a lot of those ballot initiatives, the top contributors are individual billionaires. p. >> so it's not -- i think we have to be really clear about this. most of these ballot initiatives are pushed by one wealthy individual or by very small interest group that managed to get these things on the ticket.

as troubling as state legislatures are, you have to vote, you have to get 50%, so here is the top ones in california, prop positions 30 through 40. and here are the individuals and/or organizations that put them on the ballot. how do we in a system where on the one hand we want to be voting, we want to be voting early, how do we manage this kind of circumstance? you get there and you've got ten ballot initiatives you have to manage. >> the first thing we have to do is think about what happens when you go shopping at the mall. you walk around, you buy like would be thing and you look at three dresses and you're exhausted. signature by the orange julius stand saying i need to get out of here. the reason that you're so tired is that decisions are exhausting. mental decisions. not even moving your body, just making decisions is exhausting. and there's a lot of social science research that when you ask people who make more than three or four decisions, they actually shut down.

>> this is why the president only has blue and black suits. he's like i got to decide whether or not we're going to war. so i'm not going to be thinking about the color of the suit. >> exactly. and the president knows about that research. he was telling that in a vanity fair article. he pairs down all the other decisions. it's a real thing. and it really all jokes aside applies here why wr if we had one or two big ballot measures that were really well campaigned on and educated and then you made your decision, that would be one thing. what we've seen is too much democracy, too much choice, which is a practical matter, you have down ballot voting where a lot of people don't bother to choose. the people who do choose aren't as well informed. i'll question back to the saturday night live ad about the undecided voters. when is the election some who? s who is the president? and be specific. and if you have trouble remembering the two people running for president, what do you think happening in a

confusing 1% worded ballot like that. >> but sometimes there is a decent amount of information. the key one that i'm focusing on is the maryland marriage equality one. and there is a lot of information and a lot of bhalgts grounding going on with that. but i'm still distressed because it's not clear to me that someone's fundamental civil rights ought to be on a ballot. i mean, if slavery had been voted on, pretty sure it would have taken another, i don't know, tech and i had, two decades, maybe right now before we would be done with it.and i decades, maybe right now before we would be done with it. fundamental civil rights are fundamental civil rights. >> part of the problem is the local media don't cover ballot measures like they cover the candidates. so a lot of states you're not sending out a voter guide from the election commissions. so it takes time to read these things and there's social pressure to get through the line and what not. and so one thing that has -- >> that's an interesting point. if you're standing there in line and you're trying to read legalees and the people behind you are like -- right. oh, yes.

>> and i think there has been one shift. i think ballot measures were shall so somewhat the dominion of the progressive right. i think the progressive side of things is through ballot initiatives, strategy center and others, they're trying to push progressive ideas. and some of those listed were not just in individual millionaires like the michigan ballot measures essentially bought and paid for by the amway family in terms of the qulekt testify bargaining measures. so there are instances, but if there is not information out there through the media, through paid media, then you have smart people, informed people who are entirely not only undecided, but uninform uninformed. >> even michelle reed, the so-called education reformer who i think by having $500,000 on that game in michigan about stripping the rights of union workers to organize is an indication of sort of how anti-union in fact this particular form of education reform is.

i guess in that one way it's great because if you canal follow that money, you can sort of see where people stand. we have more on ballot initiatives and on the issue of marriage equality and the fact that it is skauin the so-called hands of the people. ♪ [ female announcer ] gross? i'll tell you what's really gross. used dishcloths. they can have a history that they drag around with them. for a cleaner way to clean try bounty extra soft. in this lab demo, one sheet of bounty extra soft leaves this surface 3 times cleaner than a dishcloth. it's super durable too. it's the cleaner way to clean. bring it with bounty extra soft, the cloth-like picker-upper. and try bounty napkins.

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lost your appetite for romance? and your mood is on its way down. you might not just be getting older. you might have a treatable condition called low testosterone or low t. millions of men, forty-five or older, may have low t. so talk to your doctor about low t. hey, michael! [ male announcer ] and step out of the shadows. hi! how are you? [ male announcer ] learn more at isitlowt.com. [ laughs ] hey! state ballot initiatives to legalize same-sex marriage in washington, maryland and maine. statements issued by the obama campaign in those three states urged voters to vote yes to apploof saa apapproaap prooapproach proof same-sex marriage. only six states in the district of columbia currently allow same sex marriage while 38 states have allows and constitutional provisions on the books that

limit marriage to relationship between one man and one woman. so is this good or bad? the most pain fall part of 2008 for me is the election of president obama and the passage of prop 8 on the same night in the same state. now it looks like the president is embracing marriage equality in part as an election strategy. >> i think it's good strategy. first of all, i think it's the right thing to do and i think it's something the president has always believed in, but it carried a lot of political risk. and i think a lot of hay has been made by many african-americans have not been as supportive of same-sex marriage. the other political risk that didn't get much attention is the union households, there's not a lot of support for same-sex

marriage. but the democratic party is a big tank. it's always been a big tank. and so there's always tension between with we have a lot of interests, but the president doing this, the president is actually influencing the opinions of his supporters. >> the racial rhetoric coming out of the right, that racial and it in a mus is in-dodge mus, which means it's in the system about it makes it okay to say racially problematic things, then it's okay to say them. but similarly this sense of equality is also endogenous. if you're the president, you can lead on this issue. >> clearly the administration and the campaign could have stayed silent on those ballot initiatives. and i don't know how much it wins them in terms of votes, but it is a show of leadership in terms of influencing voters that they know will vote for president obama to say, hey, we actually agree with marriage equality, should you vote this way.

and the other thing is i was mentioning at the break martin o'malley, governor of maryland, is banking his 2016 presidential run on marriage equality. i think that shows a huge shift not only the democratic party the last decade, but in american politics more broadly. the notion that you have a future presidential candidate who is aggressively out will saying vote yes for marriage equality. >> the thing that most irritates me is the president has just this love affair with the idea of the president's african-american critics. so part of what we also see going on in maryland are conservative right wing african-american pastors who are very aggressively on the other side. so the it is courdiscourse is tw the president will lose black voters in maryland. >> and i think that's just a big problem. it was like in a town hall when about 90 -- >> oh, mike jones. >> you go. >> no, please.

take down mike jones for me. >> roughly 94% approval rating among african-americans for this president. that's apapproval. when you go to voting, it ticks up to 97%, 98% and sometimes 100% depending on the poll. i don't know how hard the presidential debate commission, which by the way as i've written in the nation is a very male dominated and very white, very secretive nontransparent organization, i don't know what they did to find the gentleman who came up with the negative question to the president, but they had to search real hard no that. >> and the only african-american who asked the question of the president in the town hall is like mike jones, i'm not excited anymore. it was a stunning moment. >> and i follow those debates closely. i didn't hear many other questioners mention who i voted for. i was for you in massachusetts, but n now you're different-of no, we have an african-american

question that -- it just really bothered me. i didn't get a chance to get that off my chest. >> we're like a little therapy. and truth be told, we've all been looking at the sunday review in the "new york times" about how apparently the president is a big fat racial failure. so this has probably been building the whole show. >> the other point i'll make that does connect these is there aren't black rights, all right? there are human rights. we're not talking about gay marriage. we're talking about marriage. when we talk about whether you can visit someone in the hospital regardless of your religion or no religion, regardless of who you do or do not sleep with, right, we're talking about the right to be with a loved one, not a gay right to be with a loved one. so that is so important because that's where we're headed because young people already see it that way. it's only older people that you have to get on this thing that it's not about marriage. so i do think it's shifting. i agree that you see the political energy in the democratic party with governor

cuomo, as well. i don't think, though, as a legal matter that she they should be on ballots at all. >> again, california has ending the death penalty on there, changing the three strikes law.. >> again, california has ending the death penalty on there, changing the three strikes law.. >> again, california has ending the death penalty on there, changing the three strikes law. things that i as a progressive would be generally supportive of, and yet my concern is when at the show up on ballot measures rather than showing up in our state legislature as did doing the work of legislation. >> you ask is it a good thing or bad thing and the answer is yes. i mean, also makes you wonder, we talked about election reform a little bit before and but i do think election reform, the venue for it may be ballot measure. because you've got to take election reform out of of the hands of incumbent, democrats or republicans. i think most of the time incumbents don't want dramatic election reform. >> a great point and you brought us finally back to the topic. more in just a moment, but first, it's time for a preview of weekends with alex whitt.

>> hello, thanks so thank you. hurricane sandy, shaping up to be an historic storm and taking aim at the east coast as potentially the biggest ever to hit the mainland. live reporters up and down the coast and on fema director craig fugate with his message to people within the forecast zone. and i'm talking to blanche lincoln about what-if scenarios with either outcome. and "the des moinesregister," out today with its endorsement of mitt romney. what changed this go round? literally, i just got off the phone talking with rick green about that. i'll quit that at the top of the show. in office politics, back in the ncs newsroom, asking our colleagues what they think the president should tackle first. busy show. >> 2012 is interesting. salt lake tribune goes for the

president, and the des moines register for mitt romney, and a hurricane in the middle of it. >> and an earth quake in los angeles. why halloween is a reminder we all need safe and strong community. [ male announcer ] eligible for medicare? that's a good thing, but it doesn't cover everything. only about 80% of your part b medical expenses. the rest is up to you. so consider an aarp medicare supplement insurance plan, insured by unitedhealthcare insurance company. like all standardized medicare supplement plans, they help save you up to thousands in out-of-pocket costs. call today to request a free decision guide. with these types of plans, you'll be able to visit

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wednesday is halloween, and because it's an election year, many will choose costumes inspired by our political season. some will don a mask of their favorite presidential candidate. to white presidential reporter, mask? yes. black face? no. the more creative will be a clint eastwood in spired invisible or a romnesia etch-a-sketch or binders full of women, or my personal fave, horses and bayonets, prompted by

the president's stinging one liner. halloween in an election year brings out the ghosts and ghouls of traditional sort. it can be a barometer for the health of our communities. i don't mean the sugar high and tooth decay that sets in around november 2nd. i mean a different measure of health. do you feel safe enough to let your child go door to door in your neighborhood? or do you have to go to a more affluent section of town to be safe? would you open the door to teens knocking after dark? or does the crime in your community have you turning off your lights and drawing your shades? do you trust that the political costumes of your neighbors will be light hearted and good spirited? or do you cringe some will go over the line and turn holiday fun into a partisan minefield? do you know who your neighbors are? are you able to organize a safe,

early evening block party, or are your neighbors strangers every day of the year, not just when they are in costume? it's a small thing, halloween. but it's a reminder, we aren't just an electorate, we are a people. and when election day is behind us, we still need to have safe communi communities, deep connections, and robust civil societies capable of sustaining our nation. i want to have a joint costume endeavor this year. harris-perry and the orderer of the brains. chris is a dead wringer for harry. that's it for the show today. thank you to my guests. and thank you to you at home for watching. i'll see you again next week. saturday, 10:00 a.m. eastern on the plaza join us. [ boy ] there i was. another holiday stuck at the kids table again.

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